Lazarus Dreaming
by Arroyo Rose Cawston
Summary: 32 years after Zero Requiem, Suzaku Kururugi faces the consequences of burying himself behind the mask.
1. Life Catches Up

Author's Note: This story may or may not be in the same universe as _Habeus Corpus_. I haven't decided yet. This story takes place 32 years after Zero Requiem.

* * * * *

On a sunny day in June, the camera crews were crowded at the edges of the Rose Garden at Albion Mansion to capture Zero and Prime Minister vi Britannia taking a walk. The weather was warmer than usual, yet Zero appeared unaffected despite being swathed in black cloth and covered by his helmet. Rumor had it that his outfit had some kind of climate-control system built in.

As for the Prime Minister, she wore an enormous hat and a pink sundress, so she looked cool despite not feeling it. A silent bodyguard, almost an accessory, trailed some distance behind her just out of frame.

The scene was rather dull, actually. The media were there mainly to take more stock footage. No shotgun-style microphones were allowed, so the conversation between the dignitaries couldn't be heard or recorded. Nobody was expecting any real news to occur until the press conference the next day.

Prime Minister vi Britannia and Zero stopped by the fountain. The Prime Minister's gaze followed a butterfly. She grinned and made an admiring comment. She looked up at Zero and said something amusing. Zero turned to her and bent down so that his mask was by her face. One of his hands gripped the handle of her wheelchair. Another hand held the armrest. A moment later, he knelt down beside the Prime Minister.

The camera-people stirred. Something irregular appeared to be happening.

The Prime Minister beckoned to the bodyguard who ran quickly to the pair. The Prime Minister said a few words. The bodyguard's eyes narrowed. He began talking into the communication device that looped over his ear.

Zero's grip on the wheelchair began to shake. Suddenly, his hands went limp. He slid down into the arms of the bodyguard. Zero's cloak wrapped around him so that he looked somewhat like a crumpled bat.

The Prime Minister's security detail arrived and began shooing the reporters out of the Rose Garden.

* * * * *

The suit had been designed to be cool, but merely looking at the sweating, wilting people around him had been enough to make Zero imagine that he also felt hot. As he walked along beside the Prime Minister, he tried to ignore the all-capturing lenses of the media.

The Prime Minister's wheelchair stopped rolling. A smile lit up her face as she said, "Look, Zero. A butterfly. You know, I never get tired of looking at them."

Zero, however, had noticed something somewhat ominous just past the butterfly on the other side of the fountain. Normally, everything he saw had a slightly bluish purple tint to it, an effect of his mask. However, in crisp, vivid color, standing at that very spot was General Tohdoh.

There was no mistaking it. The man was wearing a kendogi, his white jacket and blue hakama trousers. The right panel of his jacket was crossed over the left. Remarkably, there was hardly any gray in his hair even though it had all been gray the last time that Zero had seen General Todoh. He stared at Zero seriously. The butterfly settled on a flower and flapped its wings once, twice, thrice. Just as Zero blinked, the apparition disappeared.

The vision left a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He preferred that the dead stay in his nightmares.

"Zero, you're being awfully quiet." The Prime Minister looked up at him. Her delighted expression suggested that she was about to tease him mercilessly or else propose his imminent defeat at poker later that evening.

"I'm reserved. It's in my character," he murmured.

"And yet, shy people can turn out to be some of the most brilliant actors," she said.

"All the world is a stage," he played along quoting Shakespeare. Despite the dimming tint that normally distorted his view, the colors of the garden flowers were starting to glow noticeably under the intensity of the sunlight. The effect contributed to a feeling of unease in Zero as his knees began to feel a little wobbly.

He leaned in close to the Prime Minister, placed one hand on the handlebar of her wheelchair, the other hand on the armrest.

"There's no need to whisper," said the Prime Minister raising an eyebrow. "They can't hear us."

"I…. I…."

"Yes, Zero?"

"It's…." Feeling very tired, he dropped slowly to his knees. He coughed.

"Is something the matter?" The Prime Minister inquired.

"Hard to breathe," Zero began to gasp. The Geass behind his eyes began screaming at him. "Need help."

The Prime Minister beckoned to the bodyguard. He walks slowly, Zero noted mentally. Noticing the bodyguard's familiar appearance, Zero recognized the man as Aurelius Guilford-li Britannia.

Whatever did Guilford and Cornelia-hime feed their children? Zero thought thickly, This one seems to have turned out anemic.

"He's getting sick," the Prime Minister's voice sounded distant. "Get the reporters out. We need an ambulance.

Getting sick? I am, Zero realized as he began to feel a mild gag reflex kicking in.

Have to get a grip, he told himself. Wait for the audience to file out.

But then, he was falling, down to someplace warm, soft and comfortingly blank.


	2. Wakeup Call

He opened his eyes.

Nothing was tinted purple, which was a bad sign. The air smelled of disinfectant. He could feel stickers on his chest and a catheter in his right arm. There was a rhythmic beeping noise coming about 3 feet from his head.

He looked to his right and to his left. Clearly, he was in a hospital room filled with balloons, cards, flowers and packages wrapped in bright paper. Thankfully, it was a private room for one.

Aurelius Guilford-li Britannia was sitting beside Zero's bed. He was intently working on a crossword puzzle.

Zero's clothes were gone, and he was wearing a hospital gown instead. In other words, he had been seen. His mind raced as he struggled to remember the people from the brief episodes of consciousness he'd had since the sunny afternoon in the Rose Garden. His worries were answered with a slightly painful pressure in his chest.

Zero whimpered sharply at the unexpected discomfort, distracting Aurelius from his crossword.

"Aha. Good morning," said the young man.

"Likewise," said Zero.

"How are you feeling?"

"Terrible. Like I just got out of a shipwreck," Zero replied, remembering stranded sailors from the pirate movies that he had seen as a child.

"Yes, Dr. Darlton said you would probably be feeling that way since you had a heart attack."

"Darlton what?"

"Dr. Darlton said that you'd be tired because you had a heart attack."

"Impossible." Zero was baffled. He ate his vegetables, exercised daily, didn't smoke, hardly ever drank…. How on earth could he possibly have gotten a heart attack?

"Whatever you say," said Aurelius.

Zero felt languid and heavy, but he wanted to sit up. Lying down made him feel powerless. He started trying to push himself up when Aurelius mentioned, "There are buttons on the railing of the bed, a remote, too."

Aurelius handed the remote to Zero, who pushed one of the buttons. The top of the bed tilted up to almost a sitting position.

"Thank you," said Zero. "I'm not very familiar with hospital furniture, obviously."

"You're welcome," Aurelius replied.

"How many people saw me?" Zero inquired.

"Well…. the EMTs, nurses, nursing assistants, surgeons and cardiologists treating you, cleaning staff in the area, patients who happened to be in the hallway, the security guards by your door, members of the Prime Minister's personal staff, the Prime Minister…."

Shit, thought Zero.

Aurelius continued, "Due to confidentiality agreements, the medical staff and government staff can't say much about you. At least they're not supposed to. A lot of your clothes had been removed by the time you'd arrived, so it's doubtful anyone besides the people who saw your tag recognized you as Zero."

Well, that was a blessing. Zero examined the plastic identification bracelet around his left wrist. It read, "ZERO, ZERO. DOB: ? ADM: ATT: AGE: 63? M. ADM DATE: 13/06/50." He frowned at the overestimation of his age, an overshot of almost 13 years.

"Chairman el Britannia is on his way from Kyoto," Aurelius mentioned. "He'll probably visit you sometime tomorrow."

"Great," said Zero. Schneizel would be very helpful with damage control regarding the media and Zero's identity.

"And, the Prime Minister sends her apologies for not being here. She is quite distressed by your sudden illness and wishes you a speedy recovery."

"Affairs of state never wait. I hope she won't worry about me too much."

Aurelius rolled his eyes. "You could have died, you know. It's only natural that she might be concerned." Besides, the Prime Minister had a reputation for great care toward people with whom she worked. She was similar to her brother Schneizel in that respect.

Zero looked down sheepishly. Yes, he had made Nunally worry. It was an uncomfortable thought.

"Your mother must be very jealous of you right now," said Zero in an attempt to steer the conversation to another topic. "When I turned up many years ago, she was determined to unmask me. Now here you are, seeing my face without having expended the slightest effort."

"The Prime Minister asked me to stay with you, some others as well," said Aurelius. "She didn't want you to be alone."

The attempt to change the subject had failed. Back to talking about Nunally. "That's just like her," said Zero lamely.

The door of the hospital room opened. A doctor entered trailing a small entourage of medical students. Her white coat was embroidered with the name, "Annabella Darlton, M.D." She had short brown hair, wire-rimmed glasses with rectangular frames and a smile that reminded Zero of Lloyd Asplund.

Zero felt a twinge in his chest as he considered the entourage and his doctor's slightly disconcerting appearance.

"Good morning, Aurelius. Good morning, Mr. Zero. I see you're awake and that you're sitting up. Recovery is progressing right on schedule. All very good. I'm Dr. Annabella Darlton, Chief of Cardiology. How are you feeling this morning?"

"I've been better," he answered.

"Naturally. That's normal in people who are recovering from a heart attack. Any chest pain?"

"Just a bit on and off. How can I possibly have had a heart attack?"

"Appearances can be deceiving," said Dr. Darlton. "You may look healthy and your cholesterol numbers may be good, but alas, there is another factor in play here. As much as you may not want to hear it, you are most certainly going to have to take it easy from now on."

"Take it easy?"

"I don't presume to know exactly what your work entails or what else is going on in your life, but you will either have to learn to reduce your stress levels or manage them better."

Zero looked horrified at the thought of making any changes to his lifestyle.

"The alternative is that you die," said Dr. Darlton cheerfully. "But I'd prefer that we not dwell on that. You shouldn't dwell on it either. Really, what you ought to do is simply relax."

Relax or die? thought Zero. This was going to be impossible -- even with the help of the Geass.


	3. Feast Rx

The television screen that afternoon depicted a press conference. There was a man in a gray pinstriped suit at the podium just outside the hospital's official front door. The captions at the bottom of the screen read, "Zero Hospitalized at New Canterbury University Medical Center. Wilberforce Franklin. Hospital Public Relations."

The hospital representative kept his report brief and to the point. Zero had been hospitalized for a heart attack, but he was now stable condition. He was expected to make a full recovery. No, he did not have an exact date for when Zero would be discharged from the hospital. No, he was not going to discuss Zero's identity. No, he was not going to confirm whether a particular photo was legitimate.

The scene cut to the anchors in the newsroom. Behind them, there appeared a photo of Zero in his mask and another blurry, poorly lit photo of Zero's face that had been taken with a camera phone.

Zero felt a surge of gratitude for the genetic train wreck that mixed his Kururugi and Sumeragi features so that he didn't closely resemble anybody in his family. Otherwise, his identity would have been all too obvious. He was also grateful that age and time had affected his appearance so that, even if he was no longer handsome, at least he was now hard to recognize as his former self.

* * * * *

After being hassled by three levels of security despite having an entry permit from the Prime Minister herself, Kallen stopped in her tracks when she finally got to the hospital room and saw the man in the bed. "Oy. You look like shit. No wonder you've been wearing a mask all these years."

His hair, chestnut brown with a smattering of gray, was sticking out at peculiar angles. His face was pale and smooth from years without sunlight, but it was also deeply creased where there were worry lines. He needed a shave, too. As for the getup, well, hospital gowns flattered nobody.

"You look well, Professor," said Zero.

"Don't be an idiot," Kallen scolded. She sighed with disapproval. "You still haven't learned how to be informal, huh?"

Zero shrugged. "Such things take practice."

Kallen pulled up a chair and sat in it. She smirked at the overwhelming mess of cards, balloons and other gifts that filled the room. "Good thing your fans don't know what you really look like. Goodbye, harem."

"Hah…." said Zero humorlessly. "I thought you were teaching at Sapporo?"

"I'm on sabbatical. I happened to be in town here to examine documents in the national archives."

"Nothing about me, I hope."

"Don't flatter yourself," said Kallen.

"Amazing. I have a heart attack, and you still take the opportunity to insult me. You're worse than Kaguya, C.C. and Anya – combined. What happened to the loyal and devoted Q-1 we used to know?"

"Someone has to keep the attention from going to your head."

"Thanks."

"Any time."

"How are Gino, Colin, Naoto and…. Helene-is it?"

"Colin's still on stage pretending to be me. Naoto is taking apart everything that has moving parts when I'm not looking. I don't know when or if he'll ever put them together again. Helene is painting every blank surface she can get her hands on. And Gino is the same as always. I swear they get it from him."

"At least they got their brains from you."

"Yeah, seriously," Kallen emphatically agreed, "but what can I do? I love the lot of them."

He was ever so grateful that she was treating him as normally as he could be treated. "Thanks for coming to see me."

"Well, you know it's not every day that the great, resurrecting Zero takes off his mask. I thought I'd visit and catch the free show. Theater tickets are expensive lately, and I've already seen Colin's act in Tokyo, London, New York and Kyoto."

Zero buried his face in his hands and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Better than television!" Kallen gloated. "Oh, yeah. I brought you something."

She opened a large zippered lunch box and pulled out a thermos of salt-laden miso soup and boxes of pickled cucumber salad, crispy-fried tempura, deep-fried pork katsu, sticky, sweet white rice and a mochi ball bigger than a hockey puck. Plus, a packet of mayonnaise.

"You got all that through security?" Zero looked a little nervous as he took in the stroke, myocardial infarction and diabetes all-in-one.

"Oh, live a little. It's good for the soul," she insisted. "Besides," she pinched the skin on his muscular upper arm, "I doubt it's what you're eating that made you sick. But if you decide today to spend the rest of your life eating cardboard, you might as well die."

Zero opened the thermos and sniffed cautiously. The aroma of salt, seaweed and herbs conjured a feeling of peace and safety he hadn't known since he was three years old. "It does…. smell pretty good."

Kallen snorted. "Yeah, it'd better! It's my mom's recipe. If you're not going to eat it, I'd like it back. You can have Jell-o or gruel or whatever it is that they make sick people eat in Britannian hospitals."

"You're right. I better eat this, or I might as well die."

"Glad to see you'd like to live." Kallen lowered her voice to avoid being heard by the security guards. "'Cause if you didn't eat it, I'd kill you myself."

"Nice to know you care, Professor," said Zero.

"That's what friends are for," Kallen replied flippantly. "I brought some games and stuff for you to pass the time after dinner. Anything look especially interesting?"

"I can stand anything but poker."


End file.
